


Badger

by OxfordOctopus



Series: OxfordOctopus' Snips'n'Snaps [17]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alt-Power Taylor Hebert, Gen, Mentions of Gaslighting, Post-Leviathan, Power Swap, Ward Taylor Hebert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:26:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23040157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OxfordOctopus/pseuds/OxfordOctopus
Summary: Taylor returns to Brockton Bay in the wake of Leviathan, having been sent to Chicago when her father learned about Shadow Stalker.Things don't go so great.
Series: OxfordOctopus' Snips'n'Snaps [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1435474
Kudos: 50





	Badger

**Author's Note:**

> minor cw for mentions of gaslighting and suicidal ideation.
> 
> This is a Browbeat powerswap, for those who are unaware.

There wasn’t a whole lot left of Brockton once Leviathan had been done with it. Where there had once been tall buildings now lay rubble, where there had once been suburbs and slums now sat a slurry of debris and mud, congealed into a menage not too dissimilar to hardened clay. The streets were trashed, the people were looting, the heroes were dead and the criminal elements, without the Endbringer truce to prevent them, took every advantage; recruiting, claiming fresh triggers, barricading themselves in mangled bases of freshly-minted Tinkertech in the gaps where society used to be.

Taylor carefully set the report down onto the meeting table, glancing up. Around her, the two others who had been transferred in - Flechette, who introduced herself with a shaky smile cut through a vein of desperate need, a need to prove something, to herself or to others Taylor wasn’t so sure; and Weld, who introduced himself with a cordial nod and a firm but not threatening handshake, engaging with her directly, a push to show that he would be someone she might be able to lean on - who were still mostly burying their noses in the reports. It was a several paged affair, and it had only been Taylor’s passing knowledge on a city she used to live in just months prior that had let her be the first to finish.

A breath, shaky and nervous, escaped her lips before she could stop it. Taylor wasn’t allowed to go to protect Brockton from Leviathan, her father had made sure, even while the imminent threat of a mass-hydrokinetic monster bore down on the shores of his home city, that the Chicago Protectorate had gotten a call from him, had gotten his demand that she not be allowed to volunteer for the fight. Her and her father had parted on poor terms and a poorer fight almost half a year ago; she had accidentally revealed that Sophia was part of the Wards and in less than a week he had somehow managed to push for a transfer, set up a contact through an old family friend who lived in Chicago - Peter, as it happened - and forced her onto a plane with a destination that was effectively halfway across the country.

Taylor still hadn’t forgiven him, really. They hadn’t forgiven each-other; Dad’s obsession with ensuring that she was safe even at a mental and physical cost to himself, her own  _ need _ to prove herself, to prove that she wasn’t fragile, both mentally and physically. At the same time, though, it was hardly too surprising; considering her trigger event and the subsequent half a week she spent in the Brockton Wards, maybe there just hadn’t been enough time with him in close proximity after getting her powers, not really. She’d returned for the following Christmas, New Years, and her father’s birthday - funded by the Wards, of course - but it had always been stilted, stifling; there’d be no room in the house for their past relationship, the closer father-and-daughter duo who survived her mother’s death, not after the fights and the arguments.

If nothing else, at least she knew he was _ alive _ . Pissed, but alive, pissed that she forced her way into a transfer by virtue of him not saying she  _ couldn’t _ do it, and Brockton hurting like an open wound for something even closely approximating reinforcements. Tecton had been less than thrilled with her, he’d given her a look like he was half-an-hour away from dumping her in M/S confinement until he could be sure she wouldn’t jump the gun and hop state lines, but then he hadn’t been quick enough on the draw to prevent her from getting express permission to transfer, so bully to him.

“Muster?” Weld’s voice drew her gaze back up, her eyes catching his for just a moment. He had his hands folded carefully over one-another, prim and proper in a way that his metal frame made somewhat odd, the presentation clashing with the looks, not that she’d ever admit it. He gave her a gentle smile, gently rocking one shoulder up towards where Flechette was sitting, her gaze following the motion and catching sight that she was done as well.

Before she could say anything, make a passing attempt at social interaction that had taken her  _ months _ of dour, tight-lipped silence to achieve in Chicago, the doors banged open. In walked Director Piggot, just as large, both in body and in spirit, as she had been back when Taylor first joined. She looked a bit wan, though, frayed around the edges and tired, but even with that there was a sense of sturdiness beneath it all, like a rock hidden beneath layers of itchy cotton.

“You’ve all finished the report?” Piggot asked, her pace taking her to the far other end of the oval-shaped table, far enough away from them to show just exactly how much distance she expected from the rest of them. If nothing else, working as a cape in Chicago, a place where the PRT’s opinion on parahumans could be described as ‘unfriendly’, had managed to make her rather politically adroit, even if only to ensure she understood the signals her direct superiors were sending her. They couldn’t outright say it - the Wards had enough protections to prevent trained adults with automatic weapons from _ directly _ telling them they thought they were all awful creatures who were one bad day away from needing a bullet - but, well, they could _ imply _ it, or shape the dynamic between themselves and their charges to  _ reflect _ that opinion, without even needing to be all that subtle about it.

Nodding alongside the other two, Piggot let out a hum of acknowledgement before settling down into her seat. She took a moment to orient herself, lacing her hands together and leaning ever-so-slightly back in her chair, heels scratching across the recently-bleached, faux-tile floor. “To begin with”—Piggot’s gaze swung to her, Taylor felt herself reflexively draw inward—”The  _ PRT _ welcomes you back to Department ENE, Muster.”

Unable to stop herself from blanching from the dry, flat tone, Taylor woodenly nodded at her now-boss.

“I hope nothing between yourself and  _ another _ will be a problem, yes? Since it was your decision.”

“Of course,” Taylor agreed, hating herself for the slight squeak in her voice. Piggot was still mildly terrifying in a way that few authority figures, especially ones in school, had ever managed to live up to. “There won’t be any problems, no.”

“Good.” Turning her gaze away, Piggot looked towards the other two, who looked both cautious and curious at the byplay. Personally, Taylor was just glad that she hadn’t entirely aired their dirty laundry for the other two—explaining that she had been forcefully relocated due to one of her tormentors being a Ward might put a pin in ongoing relationships.

“To the rest of you, Brockton Bay welcomes you to our Wards program. Weld, you will be taking an active place as the leader of the Wards, largely due to your age, though in part due to your existing performance as the leader of the Boston Wards. Flechette, there will be additional information in your room for how your placement in Brockton Bay reflects your placement in the New York Wards. Largely due to us not having as many Wards, you may need to go over it with others on the team. Are we clear?”

Flechette, mirroring Taylor in a way that was somewhat awkward to look at, gave a shaky nod and did her level best to pull herself away from the conversation, not even verbally responding. Weld, by contrast, just smiled and easy smile and agreed vocally, though he didn’t say much more than a “yes”. Piggot, apparently accepting this as the best she was going to get for a response, gave a firm nod before moving her gaze to none of them in particular, her eyes canvassing the entire room in steady, gradual sweeps.

There were a few moments of stiff, uncomfortable silence, before eventually something worked its way out of her system and Piggot slightly slumped. Taylor didn’t miss it, she was pretty sure neither of the other two missed it either, but it  _ felt _ unreal; Piggot didn’t slump, Piggot breathed down your neck and screamed in your face. She looked tired, older in ways that she hadn’t, even when dealing with the Shadow Stalker situation, and at a second look, even her breathing was a bit laboured, her makeup unable to fully hide the bags beneath her eyes. “You should go and introduce yourselves to the rest of your team,” Piggot said, her voice slow, not slurred, but close. “I expect you to settle in in a short amount of time, we have  _ no _ room for drama or internal conflict, not now.”

Weld was the first to rise, Taylor following his actions shortly thereafter. Flechette less rose and more scrambled out of her seat, looking for all the world like a startled cat, pausing only long enough to yank the bag she’d taken off back onto her back. Taylor stood beside Weld as Flechette stumbled towards the two of them, Weld’s hand outstretched to keep the glass door open, getting a brief smile and a muttered thanks as she slipped beneath his arm and escaped out into the hallway.

The door shut behind them with a clatter, leaving the three of them alone in the long, undetailed, and largely impersonal concrete hallway that defined the interiors of most PRT buildings.

Taylor stretched her arms up over her head, feeling the pull of her blue outfit against her skin, pausing only long enough to flex her fingers experimentally, feeling pins and needles rush into each digit as her circulation kicked back into gear. Apparently she’d be more tense than she first assumed; maybe coming back home wasn’t as great of an idea as she thought it was. Still, there was no real turning back from what she’d done, so without any other options, Taylor kept herself at pace with Weld as they made the circuit towards the Wards area a few floors down, passing by decommissioned elevators and overworked PRT staff members interspersed with the occasional fully-outfitted trooper.

“So, Chicago?”

Looking over towards Flechette, Taylor’s brows furled as a burst of confusion muddied her head, making it hard to fully parse what the question was about.  _ What about Chicago? _ She wanted to say, before it occurred to her that it was more rhetorical than literal.

“Yeah, Chicago,” Taylor said, slipping between a crowd of office workers as they clustered around what might very well be one of the last remaining coffee machines in the building. The smell was tempting, the line was not. “For about five months, I guess?”

Flechette  _ hummed, _ the noise a touch curious. Weld kept to himself, but the way his eyes would flash over to her every couple of seconds, the weighty question they all had on their mind was more than obvious. Taylor breathed in, exhaled out a tired, bleary sigh; she’d wanted to avoid ever talking about this, but...

“I joined the Brockton Bay Wards first,” she confided awkward, sloping her arms behind her back and tightening her grip around each hand. “Before I debuted, about a week-ish after I joined, my father realized one of the people who bullied me in school was a Ward. I let it slip accidentally, and we had this really long, drawn out fight about it. A couple of days later, I’m called in by Piggot and handed a fistful of papers, a departure date to Chicago, and a long, drawn-out phone call with my father while in her office that included me yelling and using a few less-than-polite words at him.”

The other two were silent, so Taylor continued. “Turns out, he had just, pushed for a transfer. We have a family friend in Chicago, Peter Lavere, though he married a few months ago and he’s now a Peter Walsh, but that’s not really important. My dad set it all up, he’d be my home base or contact while in Chicago, potentially a place to go if I couldn’t be in the Wards area, though I think I lived basically entirely with the Wards, and I only ever really met Peter in passing a few times. I wasn’t allowed to come fight Leviathan when he hit my home town, but my dad never specified I couldn’t transfer  _ after _ .”

Another short pause, more silence aside from the steady tap of their footsteps as they neared the last stretch of the walk.

“We’re not talking right now, but then that isn’t precisely a  _ new _ development.”

With the Wards area in sight and the long-abandoned halls feeling more and more unappealing, Taylor picked up her pace and shut her mouth, prompting Weld and Flechette to do the same. Post-Endbringer cities were always a bit dreary, miserable and almost  _ creepy _ , though that last descriptor rarely went to places that weren’t hit by the Simurgh. However, the lack of cleanliness, the cold, the forlorn people and dead families, they were still weighty presences, and if it could be abated by being around others, well, who in their right mind would slow down to savor the misery?

Stepping up to the door, Weld pressed his thumb into the ever-iconic red-and-white button. A shrill alarm went off, cutting through the din of awkward silences, and above the door an LED screen lit up, red numbers starting at 0:30 and counting down from there. The alarm continued for the duration, an unfortunate staple, and only cut out when it hit the fifteen second mark, and by that point Taylor was rolling the flat of her palm against the shell of her ears in hopes of banishing the shrill keening it left over.

Finally, the clock slipped over to 0 and the heavy-duty double doors slid open silently, revealing the interior. It was a wide, open space, oval in shape and with about half of it raised up onto a platform, separated from the rest by a stomach-height railing. Up on the platform was a series of couches with more than a few articles of clothing strewn around, likely not a staple, but acceptable what with the state of the city, as well as a single large television that was currently on the news. Behind that one television was a wall full of other monitors, with a few consoles placed near it. In the lower area, there were a large number of fold-out chairs and tables, as well as a few other terminals and consoles, though some of them were unplugged while others looked to be damaged in some capacity, wires out of place, screens flashing, one even showing an actual blue screen of death, as though someone had mistakenly installed Windows XP on the thing.

The other Wards were there, too. The first one Taylor noticed was likely the smallest, Vista - Missy, if she was remembering - stood with her mask in her hand and eyes that looked almost dead to the world. Clockblocker - Dennis, his name came easier - stood off to one side, staring at them with his comfort mask - a version of his original mask but styled as a domino mask, covering nothing but the space around his eyes and the bridge of his nose - on, his eyes flinty and barely concealing his hostility towards them. Shadow Stalker - Sophia - was also there, though she was still on the couch, lazily staring at the news and not bothering to even imply she cared enough to wear a mask, the stylistic bit of ceramic left half-perched on the back of the couch she was sitting on.

Kid Win - Chris? - was absent, but he hadn’t been on the list of the dead, so he was probably Tinkering, or at least Taylor hoped so. A few other new folk were there too, Victoria Dallon’s presence an obvious thing, standing off to the side with arms crossed, face unavailable. Panacea - Amy Dallon? Again, the names came slow, but these were public faces, so - was also present, but on the other end of the room to Victoria, and, bizarrely, wearing gloves for some reason. The other ex-New Wave cape was here as well, Shielder, if she wasn’t getting his name wrong, and while he tried his best to put on an approachable face, the expression didn’t reach his eyes in the slightest. Lastly, a guy by the name of Chariot was up on one of the other sofas, far enough away from Sophia to not be in range of her, but also not bothering to take part, though his mask was still on.

“So, you’re the one who’s going to be replacing Aegis,” there was  _ genuine _ anger in Clockblocker’s voice, palpable rage that cut like a knife. It was out of character, it was startling, it made her want to  _ smack _ him because  _ what the fuck _ . Dennis had been the closest thing to a confidant and friend for the admittedly small amount of time she’d spent in the Wards over here and for the first month after she arrived in Chicago, though the latter was done mostly over text, and yet here he was, grandstanding and taking out his anger on someone else?

Maybe she just hadn’t known him all that well—it would make sense, she supposed.

Weld shook his head, the action smooth but somehow tight, firm. “No, I’m here to act as a leader, not as a replacement.”

Clockblocker started a bit at that, hands clenching, but he said nothing. After a few more moments of standoffish atmosphere, the ginger reached up and plucked the mask that didn’t really hide much off his face, tossing it onto the table just to his right. “I’m Dennis,” he bit out, and it suddenly occurred to Taylor that he might’ve been asked to introduce himself in hopes of integrating the three of them with the more socially adept and welcoming member of the Wards, now that Gallant was gone.

Weld smiled an easy smile, and it might’ve been disarming if it wasn’t aimed at a person drowning in their own guilt. “I’m Weld, as you might expect.” His finger came up, tapping against his cheek, the noise a  _ click-click-click _ , entirely out of place for metal that looked so soft. “I don’t have a mask to take off, but...”

Ah, it was her turn. Taylor spared a glance at Flechette, who had stepped away from her, leaving her at the center of attention and expectations. Briefly, she wondered if they remembered her, or if her physical changes - turns out, her power worked better the stronger her base, and so being muscular, regardless of her initial concerns over the matter, had become something of a ‘required end goal’, in a manner of speaking. Reaching up, she easily plucked the mask from her face, the simple half-mask facade of blues and greens, made to look metallic, durable, like her. “You might not remember me,” Taylor began, though the flash of Dennis’ eyes said otherwise. “But I’m Taylor, I go by Muster when I have my mask on. It’s nice to see you all again.”

That got Sophia’s attention, her face snapping around. Her eyes tracked over Taylor’s body in a method not quite unlike one might look at meat, unfriendly and probing and entirely non-sexual, the sort of stare you get when someone wants to know where you’d bleed the best if they stuck you with a knife. Vista perked up a bit too, though it clearly took some effort to jog her memory, but any change from the deadened stare she had started to wear was a good one, in Taylor’s opinion.

“Welcome back,” Dennis said, finally. His voice had smoothed out some, gotten calmer, there was something close to nostalgia, bitter and melancholic, that colored his words. “Even if you were only here for less than a week.”

Flechette, apparently encouraged by the reception, slipped her mask on and gave a polite, restrained smile, looking anywhere but towards Sophia, who the three of them had all caught staring at her. “I’m Lily,” her tone was less flat without the mask, more real; a person lived beneath the outer exterior of Flechette, and that was itself somewhat encouraging. “I hope we can work well together.”

Person-by-person, the rest - besides, of course, Sophia and Chariot - introduced themselves. Taylor knew most of the names, with the exception being Eric Pelham, who was Shielder when in costume. They didn’t shake hands or anything, but by the time everyone was introduced they had pulled out a few of the plastic fold-out chairs and tables, Weld taking one at the far end. Panacea had slipped out sometime during the introductions, leaving Victoria to hover awkwardly near Dennis, half-perched on her seat like she was getting ready to sprint away at a moment’s notice, whereas Eric slumped into his seat like it was the first bit of comfortable furniture he’d been near in a year. Chariot and Sophia were  _ still _ fucking off up on the raised platform, but everyone else did settle in and start to talk, Lily keeping close to her while Weld tried the more straightforward approach of sitting himself down in the middle of the Wards and effectively  _ making _ them deal with his presence.

Surprisingly, it was actually effective, seeing as Eric had actually engaged him in a conversation and had roped Vista into it too. Something about swapping funny cape stories. The rest of them, by contrast, weren’t so socially affable, and spent most of their time staring at one-another. Victoria kept glancing from her to Sophia, looking increasingly confused  _ and _ worried, while Dennis tried to stare literal holes into the ceiling, looking out of place.

“So, they brought you in to be our Brute-equivalent, then?” Vista’s voice cut in, drawing everyone’s attention. Her face was tight, narrowed with shame, guilt, and something close to, but not quite, anger. Victoria, at the side, looked grief-striker and almost nauseated, so whatever they’d been trying to talk about had been enough to force Vista to push for a change of topic. Instead of, as a good person might, going along with it, Weld smiled in  _ her  _ direction and Taylor felt just about every centimetre of her skin go cold.

“Not really. I do work in that role as a hero, but that’s Taylor’s job, no?”

Everyone’s eyes were on her again. Taylor restrained the urge to bury her face in her hands, giving an awkward nod.

Lily, looking too curious for her own good, glancing pensively at her. “What are your powers, anyway?”

“Something to do with growing bigger,” Dennis blurted, catching her gaze. He looked friendly, reassuring, as if he knew this line of talk would set her off, and it would’ve, actually, in the past. Her time spent with Dennis had been mostly about coping with her powers, the fact that she was a Brute who got more muscular and bigger, and how that directly conflicted with her already tattered self-image issues.

But that wasn’t her anymore, was it? She’d learned to deal with it, learned to like the bit of muscle she put on. Oh, she was nothing like she was with her power active, but she’d still put on a bit of bulk in her base form, even if largely by demand of Tecton and her personal fitness trainer. She hadn’t quite  _ grown _ into herself as a woman yet, she was still gawky, gangly and thin in all the wrong places, but she didn’t have a frog belly and she looked—to herself at least—a little more like a person, less like an awkward preteen who outgrew everyone like a beanstalk.

“It’s fine Dennis,” Taylor interjected, leaning back in her chair. “I’m a Brute, I alter my biology, though it’s mostly an additive effect. I add muscle mass, I make my muscles denser, I grow bone plates beneath my skin. I can use it to alter my appearance a bit, but it’s not a _ lot _ , and the changes are also there until I will them away, at which point I return to this shape. I have a secondary telekinetic shield around me, but it’s really tactile, and it mostly acts as a multiplier for the force of my attacks and my ability to defend from attacks, but I can also use it to throw things a distance away by shoving it into things I touch, though I have no real fine control over it. It’s not really like Victoria’s, unfortunately, it doesn’t stop things dead, or act as a barrier.”

Everyone was looking at her now. Sophia, Victoria, Dennis especially. Was it weird that there was  _ pride _ in his stare? He’d known her for the better part of a month, maybe a little more, and while she had told him a  _ lot _ , opening up to him had been something of a snowball effect, one comment about her life leading into another and another and another until it all rapidly spiralled into her babbling about just how fucked she was.

Was it weird that she appreciated that pride?

Was she  _ that  _ starved for validation?

...Probably.

“My biology also does a lot of things instinctively? I guess? I don’t intend to do them, and I can do them slowly, but I don’t... adapt, per-se, I just respond, like a knee-jerk sort of thing. Burns hurt me less because my biology does something with my skin, I’m less vulnerable to electricity because my body alters itself to be less conductive, or reroutes it entirely through non-essential parts of my body, I filter out poisons and toxins at a pretty rapid rate without noticing, that sort of thing.”

The silence dragged itself out afterwards, probably because of how... Thematically similar it was to Aegis, in theory. She’d known Aegis in passing, largely by virtue of him being the person who kept Sophia away from her when Dennis wasn’t there, and yet for all that could be said about how thankful she had been towards him, she found it exceptionally difficult to draw out emotions relating to his death. He died, and a small part of her didn’t care nearly enough to bother with it, and she had to  _ hide  _ that, because being callous was the last fucking thing on the planet she should or wanted to be.

“Well!” Lily said, her voice squeaky and abrupt. She clapped her hands together and offered a wan, placid smile. “I imbue things with an effect that makes them cut through anything, to the point where they’ll fuse with the materials they’re stuck inside. I’m also great at, uh, aiming and timing!”

A pause.

“I fuse with metal,” Weld said slowly, beaming a proud smile at Lily, who shirked away from the expression like it was a bag full of enraged hornets. “I’m also more durable and I can shape my body a bit, though like Taylor, I’m still a bit clumsy with the application of it. I bet in a few years, though, I’ll be able to do finer detailed changes, but for now I can just turn parts of myself into basic weaponry, repair wounds, and even remove parts of myself if necessary.”

That last bit hung in the air like a charged bomb, but nobody tried to comment on it.

“So, have you thrown yourself into any frigid water recently?” Sophia’s voice was, rather abruptly, about a foot away from her ear. Taylor jerked, snapping around to see just the faint evidence of Sophia’s power lingering in the air, sliding off her skin and into wispy black vapor as she fully reconsolidated.

“ _ Shado— _ ”

“Dennis, seriously.” Taylor caught his gaze, staring down at him. He wilted a bit before snapping his stare back around to Sophia, eyes narrowing back into a glare, but no longer yelling. “It’s fine, and no, I haven’t.”

Sophia made a low noise, what amounted to a sneer being vocalized. “I mean, I don’t know, you got powers  _ this _ time, maybe if you tried—”

“Jesus fucking christ,” Taylor interrupted, folding one hand against the bridge of her nose. Had this hurt her, back then? Had this sort of taunting and picking and  _ needling _ actually done enough damage to make her slip up that badly? Was this all it really fuckin’ amounted to? “Give it a rest, Shadow Stalker”—Sophia gave her a  _ look _ for not using her civilian name, even without her mask on—“You’ve made your point, alright? Do you want me to ask you whether or not you’ve gaslit abused, emotionally-vulnerable teenagers recently? Do you want to fight or something? We’re supposed to be working together.”

Sophia just _ stared _ for a moment, long and hard and blank. Everyone else in the room had gone silent, it was almost surreal to just watch as Sophia tried to process backtalk from her. Finally, the lights came on in Sophia’s head and, with a barked laugh, she flipped Taylor off and then deconstructed herself into shadow, floating her way back up to the raised area, passing right through the railing and rematerializing a foot above the couch, landing with a solid  _ thump _ .

“So,” Missy blurted. “That was a thing.”

Victoria was staring directly at her now, squinted, curious. Taylor didn’t really appreciate it.

“Yeah, it was. Can we just, ignore it?” Taylor managed to get out, stumbling over her words a touch. “I’d rather not have to unpack all of that just after getting here and settling in. We can deal with my history if it ever comes up and needs to be touched on, but until then...”

“Pretend the problem doesn’t exist,” Victoria said, her voice raspy from what Taylor believed was disuse. Besides the three of them who had just got there,  _ every  _ head, including Eric, who was already looking at Victoria, snapped in her direction. The teen hero gave all of them flat, unenthusiastic looks, before shrugging nonchalantly and dropping out of flight, finally sitting properly in her seat.

“Do you think someone still delivers pizza?” Dennis asked after another moment of silence, eyes glancing furtively towards the phone on the wall.

Vista shrugged, ambling to her feet and making her way over to said phone, stopping only to lift up what looked to be a ring binder with the words “acceptable food places” written in scratchy text over the front. She flipped to the first page, tugged the corded phone from the wall, and rested the receiver between her cheek and the space between her shoulder and neck. She started to dial, paused, cupped one hand over the bottom of the phone, before finally looking back. “Anyone got any big nos or allergies? We usually order like three of the things with various random toppings.”

“I can’t eat anything with nuts,” Lily said. “Also, uhm, maybe one with low cheese? I’m a bit lactose intolerant.”

Vista looked at Weld, who shrugged, before finally looking at her. Taylor, in turn, shrugged as well; whatever her trigger had done for her, getting rid of her allergies had been part of it. Missy huffed, turning back to the wall dock, and started punching in numbers on the keypad.

“She seems better,” Dennis said rather quietly. He glanced back towards the rest of the table, his hands loosened, his posture more relaxed, more open.

Victoria nodded absently, fidgeting in her seat, while Eric reached over to place a hand on her shoulder and try to push her down against the seat, having apparently started to float a bit. She didn’t even seem to notice.

Taylor turned away from the gradually-increasing conversations around her, eyes trained on the ceiling. Missy, just outside of her vision, argued quietly with someone on the other end of the phone, while Dennis tried to escape Weld’s charismatic orbit and failed, if his reluctant agreement with something Weld said was any indication. Lily was quiet too, but she’d shuffled a bit closer to Taylor, whether instinctively or intentionally, she didn’t really know, but she wasn’t about to begrudge Lily the choice. She glanced down for just long enough to try and impart that to the other Ward, who gave her a gentle, thankful smile and scooted ever-closer, eventually retrieving her phone from one of her costume’s pockets and unlocking it.

Thinking about her own phone, Taylor fished it out of the side pocket of the jacket she’d thrown over her costume for the fly over. It had been muted and not on vibrate, so it wasn’t really a surprise when she noticed the slew of texts, most from other Chicago Wards members and one from  _ Myrddin _ of all people, apparently wishing her luck with “reclaiming your hometown from the ever-gathering forces of evil and ill-fate”. Lastly, there was just one text from her father, nestled away near the very bottom of the list, presumably sent at about the same time she’d been getting on the transport for the ride over. It said, simply, “call me”.

She would, eventually. For all that Dad was a bit of an ass at times and was desperate to preserve some long-since lost sense of safety and protection, he was still her father, and she still loved him, even after the years he’d neglected her after Mom’s death, and even after he pushed her into the Chicago Wards. She’d met a lot of people there, found herself more than she likely ever would, even if she’d gone to Arcadia, and for that she was somewhat thankful.

Still, not right now. Dad would wait, just like she waited for him.


End file.
